John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Need a Break

He jumped down and walked back toward the Command Post. I saluted him as he walked past. There are officers, and then there are leaders.

We spent the rest of the day packing everything onto two pallets. We had grabbed two of most things, because I had seen a chute failure often enough on cargo drops in Afghanistan, and if we lost one, I wanted back up. We would jump with as much ammo as we could carry and stack the pallets with them too.

At 1900 I headed over to the CP for a mission planning session. All the service reps were there, and a Lt. Commander was leading the briefing. He jumped right in.

“As you know, the Navy holds Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as the only bases on this side of the Atlantic. Bermuda is still holding steady, but it’s 600 miles off the coast and doesn’t have the port facilities we need. We have a carrier strike group based out of Portsmouth, but we need a deep water port that can hold the whole fleet if necessary.” He used a laser pointer to illustrate each of the places he was talking about on a large map of the east coast.

“Naval Intelligence wants reconnaissance of each of the large ports on the East Coast. Yesterday we lost contact with a scout team in Philadelphia, presumed overrun. We also have teams set to go into Jacksonville, Florida, and Baltimore, Maryland tonight and tomorrow, respectively. ”

I interrupted him. “Sir, do you know what team that was? Who was in charge?”

“Let me check my notes. Um, JSOC IST 3. Doesn’t give any names.”

“Ok, thanks.” The Zombie Killers were Joint Special Operations Command Irregular Scout Team 1. I knew who led Team 3; in fact I knew all the guys on it. Correction, I had known all the guys on it.

He continued on. “We need your team to go check out the New York Container Terminal on Staten Island. The usual drill.” He tacked up a black and white photograph of the terminal, a wide open area with cargo cranes and warehouses.

“I’ve been there before” I said. “Back in ’04, prior to going to Iraq, to familiarize ourselves with container operations. Nice wide open space. For a minute I thought you were going to drop us into Manhattan.”

“We thought about it, right up until Team 3 disappeared.”

“Nice. Why not insert from boats? Seems like it would be a lot easier.”

The Infantry company Supply Sergeant chimed in.

“Gas shortage, and a boat shortage. We’re having a real hard time getting gasoline for the patrol boats, and spare parts, too. Aviation fuel we have a shit ton of, courtesy of the Navy.”

I chewed that around for a bit. “OK, but how do we get out?”

“Well, if the facility looks useable, based on your report, you will be relieved by a reinforced Marine Rifle Company from the USS New York flying in on Ospreys. From there, the Navy will expand its presence in the city and you will be retasked.”

“What if the place is unusable?”

“Then the same Ospreys will pick you up and take you back here to FOB Castle.”

“How long can we expect to be on the ground before pickup?”

He turned to the Marine sitting in the front row. He leaned back and said “Just give us a call, and we’ll come get you.”

“Right, and the check is in the mail. You better.”

I hated flying. I didn’t mind helos, but a plane? No fraking way. Just ordinary flying turned me white with fear. Tonight we were bucking violent winds, the tail end of a storm front that had blown through.

The C-130 lurched in another downdraft. Beside me, Brit threw up her hands in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, “YEEEEHHHHHAAAAAA! We’re on a goddamn roller coaster from Hell, Nick!”

I bent forward and stared at the floor in front of me, trying to ignore her, whispering a prayer for safety as we lurched through the sky. Across from me, Ahmed slept. Doc was reading a medical textbook. Redshirt looked out the window as we flew down the Hudson River Valley from Albany.

I took a minute to study the three new people on our team. Corporal Killeen and Specialist Desen were two regular Army infantry soldiers whom I had picked out to accompany us, out of the half dozen volunteers we had gotten. Killeen was the big redneck sniper who had been shooting with Ahmed on the boat when the airborne trooper was killed. Desen was his spotter. The two went everywhere together, and with the wide open spaces of the cargo terminal, I wanted some longer range hitting power. He carried an M14EBR-R, a modified M-14 rifle that fired the heavier 7.62 round and had better range and hitting power than our M4A2s (the M4s firing .22 magnum rounds). I had watched him shoot on the barge, and he was good. The only thing I wanted to know was where he was able to find dip. I knew guys who would kill for it, and here he was, spitting in between the seats when the C-130 crew wasn’t watching. His partner, Desen, was one of those small, wiry guys who looked like he never ate anything and could run your ass into the ground. He chain smoked on base, but I knew a guy like that could make himself so unseen a whole zombie horde could walk right past him.

Directly next to them sat our newest civilian Zombie Killer. He had shown up on the island at dusk the day before, paddling a canoe from the far shore of the river. Sascha Zivkovic, or “Ziv,” so he called himself, said he was looking to kill Zs. He claimed he had been surviving up in the Hudson highlands and had heard the gunfire and come down to investigate. He looked like a tough character, and had readily agreed to come with us to the city when I explained what we about.

“We’re going to be jumping into the City. What experience do you have with airborne operations?”

I already knew he was tough if he had been surviving this close to the hordes in the city, but I didn’t want someone with no jump experience getting hurt on a static line drop. In answer, he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a parachute with the number 63 on it. Over it were several Cyrillic letters, and over that, an old scar I recognizes as a crudely sewn-up bullet puncture.

“Serbian Army. 63 rdParachute Battalion. Bosnians, Croats, Zombies, all the same.” he said in a thick eastern European accent.

“OK then, I guess you’re qualified. Ever jump with a T-11 chute?”

“Six hundred and fifty two times. Eleven times into combat in war.”

Jeez, where the hell did we find these guys? I guess it figured though, war veterans survived where others didn’t. We knew the world could go to shit any time, and half expected it.

I introduced him to the team, and shook their hands in a reserved, standoff manner. When he got to Brit, he stared at her for a minute, left her hand hanging, then turned to me.

“You have woman on your team?”

“Yes we do. She is third in command, after myself and Doc.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Brit starting to get angry. Not a good way to start off, brother.

“She is soldier? Maybe lesbian. They make good fighters. Very angry.” He eyed her up and down, and she glared back at him.

“I’ll cut your effing balls off! Lesbian, my ass. Nick, dump him. We don’t need him.”

“Ha, she has spirit. I like that in woman.” He grinned at her, showing bad European dental work.

Problem was, we did need him. I tried to smooth things over before one of them knifed the other.

“Yes, Brit is a damn good soldier and I have every confidence in her. She has saved me more times than I can count. Is it going to be a problem?”